‘I should be forcing you to take time off,’ Valance grumbled as she slid a PADD across her desk towards Kharth.

Her XO picked it up, eyebrow quirked. ‘Take that up with Rourke. Difference between you and me, though, is that I’ve actually been relaxing while off-duty. You’ve been wearing holes in carpets waiting for your shift to start.’

Valance wondered if Kharth and Rourke had exchanged notes. Worse, for Kharth to know that, someone was almost certainly helping keep tabs on her. Was it Nestari, her yeoman? But that all came with a surge of bitter paranoia, and she swallowed it down. This was, as Kharth had argued days ago, an XO’s job.

‘If we don’t have to scramble the moment maintenance is finished,’ Valance said, ‘I’ll give you forty-eight hours.’

‘Generous,’ Kharth drawled. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Ymir. The city has an interesting history.’ Valance sighed. ‘And I still have interviews with Rivera.’

‘Can’t you tell her to pound sand for four days?’

She hesitated. The interviews were intrusive, blowing cold air on parts of her more vulnerable than she’d admitted. But there was something liberating about them now she looked back, a freedom to discussing these matters with someone who had no interest in asking her to change.

‘No,’ Valance said at last. ‘I’ll get this over and done with. I might as well be productive.’

‘Four days off,’ mused Kharth, ‘and you’re gonna walk your feet to the bone in museums all day, then handle a journalist. You’re a masochist, Valance.’

‘I think my time’s being wasted when we can be more useful. I’ll remain mentally stimulated instead of lazing on a beach.’ She had to swallow another note of bitterness, dimly recalling shore leave on Aeriaumi III a year ago, a year that felt like a lifetime, when she and Isa had clashed about how to use their time. They’d gone their separate ways for days, a concept that felt so indulgent to Valance now. So wasteful, so presumptuous that time would be plentiful.

‘Masochist,’ Kharth said again, and her sharpness was enough to banish the tension in Valance’s throat, so reminiscent of how she’d drowned just hours ago with Airex. That was for the best. She didn’t need another breakdown.

The door-chime sounded, saving captain and first officer from another bicker. They exchanged glances, Kharth shrugged, and Valance called, ‘Come in!’

Rosara Thawn did not look like she’d had much sleep, her uniform crumpled, hair mussed. She wrang her hands together as she approached the desk. ‘Captain, Commander, may I – that is, I need to speak with you.’

Another glance was exchanged. Valance extended a hand. ‘Keep it quick, Lieutenant.’

‘I…’ Thawn looked at the chair she’d been gestured to. Stopped. Straightened. ‘Captain, I am officially requesting you consider me for the position of Chief Engineer. Permanently.’

Something in Kharth’s expression shifted in a way Valance couldn’t read. The captain leaned back in her chair, looking up at the young Betazoid, and said, ‘You have been under consideration.’

‘Have I seriously been?’ There was an unfamiliar bite to Thawn’s voice. ‘Or are you saying that until someone better comes along, or you think you can get Perrek back? Or T’Varel?’

‘I -’

‘Captain, I deserve better than to just be some placeholder you can move around because you know I’m competent enough and will do as I’m told!’ Thawn’s voice thundered around the room.

Kharth scowled, lifting a hand. ‘Hold the hell up, Lieutenant -’

‘No, Commander, I won’t.’ Thawn glared at her enough to make even Kharth shut up, if only by sheer surprise, and turned back to Valance. ‘I’m good enough. You know I’m good enough. I might not be so fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants as – as some engineers, but I know what I’m doing. I kept the ship flying on the hunt for the Rotarran. And I can keep on doing this for you. For the ship.’

Valance watched her. Watched her chest heaving, saw the shine in her eyes. She tilted her chin up and said, ‘And for yourself, I assume.’

‘Yes,’ said Thawn, to her surprise. ‘I want it, Captain. I’m good at it and I want it. And you’ve been sidelining me because… I don’t know why. Because you can?’

‘Because a Chief Engineer has to fight me like this,’ said Valance after a beat. She couldn’t pretend this was the whole truth; that she’d underestimated or sidelined Thawn to test her. Or that she’d been thinking of Thawn at all in her behaviour. The idea of deciding on a new, permanent Chief Engineer for Endeavour hurt, even though Cortez hadn’t held the position for most of a year now.

‘I’m going to demand things from you,’ Valance continued, looking the Betazoid officer in the eye, ‘and you’re going to have to tell me that it’s not possible. Not that you’ll try, or you’ll make accommodations. But that it’s not achievable. Or that it’s not safe. In a way you never had to as Ops. I am going to advocate for the mission, and you are going to have to advocate for the ship itself. You have to be ready to say “no” to me, and be honest, Lieutenant. Has that ever been your strong point?’

Thawn hesitated. ‘I can see the irony if I say “no” right now,’ she said, and Kharth scoffed.

‘Commander, give me that PADD.’ Valance extended a hand, and Kharth passed back the one she’d been given only minutes ago. Valance thumbed in a few quick commands and returned it. ‘It’s done.’

‘It’s done?’ Thawn wrinkled her nose.

‘You’ve been permanently assigned as Chief Engineer.’

‘I… thank you, Captain!’

‘You can thank me,’ said Valance brusquely, ‘by getting us ready to move out as efficiently as possible. Crew still won’t be returning for a few days yet. It’s not about doing it fast. It’s about doing it right.’

‘And getting a break, too,’ Kharth added in a drawl. ‘I don’t know when I became the fluffy one here, but seriously, Thawn, you look a state.’

‘I’ll rest! I will. I can make some arrangements with Riggs…’

‘Good. Then get to it. Dismissed.’

Kharth’s gaze on Valance was dubious as Thawn bustled out. ‘You think she’s ready?’

‘I think she’s come a long way in a few short years,’ said Valance. ‘And I think people are asking that about you and me.’

This next scoff was gentler, and Kharth looked more wry. ‘You think we’re ready?’

Valance rubbed her temple. ‘Damned if I know.’ She stood up. ‘Keep the ship intact while I’m gone.’

‘I think I’d have to screw up real big on that while we’re berthed,’ Kharth pointed out. ‘Try taking a day off with a book or something. Or see some people. I don’t know. Whatever makes your little synth-hearts slow down instead of getting wound tighter and tighter.’

The words stung oddly. She was used to jibes from Kharth, and used to some of them landing. This one hit hard enough for being closer to home than she’d been expected, and yet came with the same cutting indifference as the rest of Kharth’s comments. It was comforting, in a way, the sense her XO – this woman she’d so often been at odds with – could maybe see her exposed vulnerabilities, and gave no more of a damn about that than anything else.

Or maybe she’d seen them all along, and it still wasn’t what she was being judged for.

‘When I’m back,’ said Valance, and saw Kharth brace as if a threat was coming, ‘we should start doing something.’

‘Something?’

She’d started the sentence before she’d really known what she was saying. Now Valance shrugged. ‘Breakfasts. I don’t know. We’re CO and XO.’ She hadn’t done that with Rourke. But Rourke had made space for her in his own way, letting professional conversations linger, checking in. She couldn’t do it that way, blur lines then redraw them as he did. She needed things boxed off.

But maybe she could have multiple boxes.

‘Breakfast,’ Kharth echoed, like she was considering another retort. Or maybe wondering if there was a trap. Then she shrugged. ‘Yeah, alright. Go unwind, Valance, for Vor’s sake.’